Overlord (40 page)

Overhead, four of the Indian Air Force’s mighty transport planes, the Russian-built IL-76 aircraft, started to disgorge the airborne units of the proud military. Some units were designated to land on the shield cables and place explosives, then rappel down to the top of the saucer’s dome and the surviving buildings of the city. The remaining units would penetrate the shield directly from the air and land atop the vehicle and place charges at the anchor points of the cables, the direct apex of the center-most dome. The Indian army and air forces were about to take the fight directly to this barbaric enemy. The airborne units would be supported by the armor of two full divisions. The general estimated full incursion in less than thirty minutes.

“There they are,” his adjutant said as he pointed to the first chutes of falling airborne. The white of their canopies shone brightly in the light-blue haze of the enemy shield and the reflection off the saucer of the thousand high-powered spotlights.

“Excellent,” the general said as he turned his glasses skyward. The powerful main battle tanks that remained outside of the steel-like fence kept up their fire. Rounds were now striking the three hovering saucers and it looked as if they were being rocked by the detonations against their hulls. The general watched as the leading saucer in front of the larger platform wobbled, and then straightened as two armor piercing dart-like Sabot rounds caught it along the centerline mass. He was amazed it recovered so quickly, straightening and then rising back into formation.

“They won’t last long after our infantry and airborne troops start hitting them with Dragon Missiles.”

More cheers sounded from below as men started pouring through the widened gaps in the shield.

Before anyone realized what was happening, the shield went brilliant blue. Men caught entering the gaps in the line immediately ceased to exist, vanishing micro-seconds before they could even feel the searing heat that caused their deaths. The holes that had been cut in the cables started to regenerate and connect once again with the squares of cable directly above, beneath, and at the sides. The system of defense was actually healing itself, looking like growing snakes as they regenerated and connected once more. It was as if the cables were living things that had sprung to life.

General Bajaj’s heart skipped a beat as he turned his attention to the falling chutes of his airborne. His fingers tightened on the field glasses as men started to land on the upper portion of the shield. In magnificent flashes of blue and white light his brave men started bursting into flame. As he zoomed in the general could see that it wasn’t the men flaring and burning, but their clothing and equipment. The flesh of his soldiers had immediately turned to ash as they hit the shield. They were being exterminated just as bugs in an electrically charged zapper would be when they ventured too close. All around the city above and below the shield was healing itself and his infantry started disintegrating by the thousands before his eyes.

As he shook in rage at the enemy ruse, he heard as well as saw the three smaller saucers start to move over the city. He watched as the round vehicles started to fire on his infantry inside and outside the shield. Large bursts of an energy weapon, the likes of which he had never seen before, started blowing men apart from their insides. They exploded as if they had swallowed a grenade. The few tanks that had entered the city were cut in half and the men inside died in the resulting explosions of their ordnance. The large saucer also flared to killing life as thick, purplish light fired from the upper dome. The sky illuminated with exploding and falling aircraft, both fighters and the transports that were still dropping men from their doors. The defense by the saucers was like watching a western light show as bolt after bolt of energy was cut loose.

“Oh, no, no, no,” his adjutant said as he gestured wildly toward the bottom half of the large saucer.

Large doors that were at least a thousand feet wide slowly opened and large rounded shapes of chromed steel rolled out like balls from a pinball machine. Thousands of the objects rolled through and over the rubble of the buildings, surprising the three hundred men who had gotten close to the seemingly dormant craft. The soldiers started hitting the rolling machines with small-arms fire and then fifty-caliber weaponry from the few armored personnel carriers nearby. That seemed to stop them. The general had his hopes raised only momentarily as the sixteen-foot-diameter balls stopped suddenly as if they were stuck in the asphalt of the street and the crumbling concrete of the destroyed buildings; then they sprang open like an animal trap. His eyes widened further when he saw that the balls had expanded to manlike shapes. The automatons were chromed steel monsters. Their bulk was tremendous as their heavy weapons started to open up on his exposed troops. The machines were firing high impact, exploding kinetic rounds directly into flesh. Men were exploding into bright red bursts of mist as they were struck.

“Look!” men started shouting from their vantage point of safety outside the shield.

The general looked through his glasses as the Grays showed themselves for the first time. They charged through the open portals in a mass concentration, but didn’t start attacking the remaining ground forces inside the shield. They charged directly into the standing office buildings and apartments that were abundant in Mumbai. They streamed into homes, the subway, and other places of sanctuary where the population had taken shelter.

“What are they doing?” his adjutant asked in a stupefied and frightened voice.

The tall, thin Grays, dressed in their purplish clothing and carrying long weapons of a sort that was unknown to the soldiers, entered the buildings by the thousands and to everyone’s horror they started dragging people from the safety of their homes and places of work where they thought they had survived the opening assault. They were pushed and rounded up like herds of sheep and made to walk, crawl, or die. The Grays were taking them into the large ship thousands at a time.

The general lowered his field glasses and felt his blood run cold. The enemy had lain in wait just to demonstrate their power. Now he didn’t know what the enemy plan was. The metal machines walked on two legs and started to track down his men who had escaped the initial confrontation; they too were taken by the hundreds. They were dug out of small pockets where they fired their weapons to no effect. He saw several of the walking machines go down after being struck by the old Dragon Missiles given to India by the Unites States, but he saw that the remaining men would not have a chance of taking down thousands of the evil, mechanized brutes. They were slaughtering men at every street corner and every hastily prepared position, even as the citizens of Mumbai were being dragged into the large saucer.

The carnage continued above as well. Airborne troops, who had managed to start their assault by rappeling down lines, were shot by laser fire and burst into small fireflies of flame by the gunnery located at the top dome of the large saucer. They fell like embers from a bonfire until their remains littered the top of the dome.

The shield glowed brighter than ever as the power of the grid increased, causing his tanks that had come too close to melt under the intense heat of the mesh-like cage. Men jumped from their burning and melting armor and were cut down by the mechanized monstrosities that were now at the shield wall, firing into soldiers and equipment that were still outside the trapped city.

The main strike force, the most powerful assault element ever assembled by an Indian army in the field, and its proud air force had been defeated in less than fifteen minutes after the enemy had shown itself for the first time.

The largest city in India was delivered to the Grays with the loss of over eighteen thousand men and forty thousand tons of equipment, and the Indian air force had virtually ceased to exist.

Mumbai was now lost to the world and its millions of citizens taken for reasons that would shake the planet to its eternal core.

10

800 NAUTICAL MILES EAST OF CUMBERLAND BAY

SOUTHERN ATLANTIC OCEAN

The
Pyotr Veliky
had set a new world record for a southern Atlantic Ocean transit for a ship of war. She had surpassed her top speed of thirty-seven knots no less than six different times as she made the southern crossing. Her nuclear reactor had gone into the red twice when the giant missile cruiser had hit bad weather, this just to keep her speed over thirty knots. The crew was exhausted after their 50 percent alert status had gone into effect after she had departed the fleet. Thus far the ruse had worked as they had received flash radio traffic that the 123-ship Northern Fleet had been overflown five times by a craft they never laid eyes on. The rumor that they were being hunted had quickly spread throughout the ship. Jason Ryan had reminded both Sarah and Anya that the Russian Navy was no different from any navy on earth—believe only 10 percent of all rumors and you should come out ahead on any bet made.

As he stood looking at the tarp and plastic covered alien power plant, Jason was fearful that he had been overzealous as far as his rumor estimate. As he looked skyward into the crisp late afternoon sky he had the distinct feeling that the
Pyotr Veliky
was now entering a kill zone. That naval officer feeling that comes on career sailors who have seen death up close. He felt that was what was stalking them—death.

Jason watched as five of the Russian and Polish nuclear technicians checked the tarp covering the power plant, making sure none of the sea spray had compromised the sealing plastic underneath. The technicians looked short and bulky in their heavy arctic parkas as they moved about. Jason got a chill and placed the fur-lined hood over his head. He had been on deck for twenty minutes to avoid Sarah’s sad eyes as she spoke to Jack from the radio center of the large missile cruiser. Anya had also excused herself, wishing she had an opportunity to speak with Carl, but she figured that the new admiral had plenty on his plate at the moment.

Soon he realized he wasn’t alone. He turned and saw Anya standing beside him as she stared out over the railing. Jason walked three paces over and joined her.

“Homesick already?” he asked.

“Already?” She smiled and then lost it as suddenly as it had arrived. “I’ve been homesick ever since I said good-bye to Carl. He’s my home, not some barren patch of land.” She turned back to look at the sea and shivered. “So in that sense, yes, I am extremely homesick.”

“I miss my friends. I think I may go on missing them too.” It was Ryan’s turn to look down and away from Anya’s eyes. “When we got that report that Niles was seriously injured in the Camp David attack it was like a portent of things to come, and I realized then just how close I had become to all of my people at Group.” He looked at her. “I mean friends.”

“Mumbai has just fallen,” came a small voice from behind them. “The Indian Army was defeated in just a little over twenty minutes after they had thought they had the upper hand.”

They turned and saw Sarah as she came from the upper decks, careful to avoid the six sailors coming off of watch. The men were in a hurry to get out of the cold air that was increased in misery by the ship’s torrid speed.

Jason and Anya saw the worry on the young lieutenant’s features as she pulled the drawstrings of her hood tighter to fit her small head.

“How is the colonel … I mean the general?” Jason asked.

“Alive at the moment. He, Will, and Henri are in transit, wave hopping south.” She smiled finally. “They are wave hopping on a southern course trying to evade prying eyes. And you know how he hates flying anyway.”

“Yeah, so does Mendenhall. I imagine he may even be frightened enough to be sitting on Farbeaux’s lap right about now, which would thrill that thief to no end.”

The moment of tension was broken and the three laughed.

“You know, if they are heading south, it’s possible they have the same destination as ourselves, which means you might just see Jack real soon.”

“I know,” Sarah said. “But is that a good thing or not? I mean, where we are going might not be the safest place to be.”

“Any word on Beijing?” Anya asked, changing the bleak subject to an even blacker one, but also one that wasn’t as personal as the current question.

“No, satellite images are showing the city is ringed with the largest Chinese army ever to take the field. But after the Mumbai disaster they are holding. The enemy hasn’t made any move like they have in India, and the Chinese right now like it that way.”

“Unlike India, they have a massive troop presence inside the city already. Someone over there was forward thinking enough to get about a hundred thousand men and some heavy armor into Beijing before the Grays’ arrival. Captain Lienanov said that their intelligence shows about a thousand tanks and half that in artillery pieces. But right now the commander of Chinese ground forces is satisfied that the Grays haven’t budged.”

“How about the new president—how is he taking the news?” Ryan asked.

Sarah turned and looked at both Anya and Ryan. “He’s talking about pulling back all American forces to protect the homeland first. Virginia is going to sit in on a meeting with the British, French, Russian, and Chinese delegates and present Matchstick’s analysis of the attacks thus far.”

“No, they can’t expose Matchstick to that man in office, at least right now.” Ryan saw a confused look cross Anya’s face. He ignored her ignorance and stared at Sarah.

“Camden and the others won’t know exactly who they are talking to; a few of them, like the British and Chinese, know about our asset, but all most of them will learn is that he is an asset with vast knowledge of the enemy. Most have guessed, I think, but don’t know for sure we have him in our corner. He’ll be speaking through Europa. Virginia has seen to that. As long as the president is alive she will keep Matchstick away from the Speaker of the House.”

Ryan finally smiled. “That ought to give everyone a thrill, to have Marilyn Monroe explaining things to them. I would like to see their faces on that one.”